Hookworms: Our Friends?

Senior Member

I found a very interesting interview by author Thom Hartmann where he talks about how many people are now intentionally putting hookworms into their bodies to cure diseases like asthma, Crohn's disease and multiple sclerosis.

And there are quite a few studies to back this up. They're all pdf files however, so not sure how to post them.

"In order to live as a parasite inside the human, the parasite must convince the host's immune system to chill and not try to reject it. With hookworms, they secrete a chemical that distracts the immune system, dampening down its response."

Daughters High School Graduation

This article was just published in a pretty popular magazine, and I can't remember the name for nothing. It's popular in most of the health food markets and the name should have stuck because it is a very unique name.
This guy is growing his own worms to intoduce into his body because they only live so long and when they start dying off his asthma returns. He knows exactly how many he needs to give himself each time because if it's too little then it doesn't work and if it's too much and the worms themselves become the problem within his digestive tract.
This guy flies to Camaroon, Africa just to walk around in local latrines (or linear ditches with the brush cleared away to discourage tick attachmnets) for two weeks.
I was just blown away by this article, just because it was so far out there. And the good results although for his asthma has implications for other diseases that gets close to people with CFS\ME\CFIDS.

So many of us have trouble with food intolerances, and I personally had a bad reaction to a commercial beefburger earlier today with high palpitations followed by strong drowsiness for a couple of hours and some stomach pain. Anyway, according to this article, autoimmune conditions could potentially be treated with the use of hookworms, little parasitic nematodes which may have a case for being termed "symbionts" due to their ability to suppress the immune reaction. Please read:

Back in the bad old Stone Age, humans had to put up with all sorts of creepy crawlies. Parasites ran amok in people’s innards, freeloading on nutrient supplies. The parasites took a toll, but over the millennia, those that killed off their meal ticket too quickly didn’t make it. The survivors of this evolutionary shakeout include parasitic roundworms and flatworms, hitchhikers that allow their human host to live on — and to provide three hots and a cot....

While this scenario might appear to be win-lose, with humans the clear losers, research now suggests that may not be the whole story. In their drive to make humans hospitable hosts, parasites have developed the ability to suppress inflammation aimed against them. And this, it turns out, isn’t necessarily a bad thing

Senior Member

Senior Member

Trust me you do not want worms. Worms are probably causing majority of the CFS epidemic. They multiple like crazy, leech your food and blood, and trigger unwanted immune reactions. I'd much rather take an inhaler than infect myself with something that will most likely make me weak and anemic.